County To Buy High-tech Radio System

SANFORD — The purchase of a high-tech $5.5 million communications system that is supposed to last into the 21st century was approved Tuesday by the county commission.

The high-frequency radio system primarily is intended for use by the public safety (fire and rescue) and sheriff's departments, but also will provide communications for the public works, animal control, environmental services and other county departments, said Public Safety Director Gary Kaiser. His department also dispatches for the Altamonte Springs fire and Longwood police and fire departments.

The system also will replace microwave telephone connections between county offices at the courthouse, the services building on First Street and the operations complex at Five Points. It also will replace telephone links between county offices and the Altamonte Springs Fire Department and Florida Hospital Altamonte.

This will be the first use of the system, which Kaiser said is ''at the leading edge of new technology,'' in Central Florida. Installation is expected to take 12 to 15 months.

The 800-megahertz system is needed, Kaiser said, because the current radio channels are becoming too crowded and reception frequently is poor. Paramedics, firefighters and deputy sheriffs sometimes are unable to talk to their dispatchers, he said.

Sheriff John Polk told the commission that radio frequencies used by his department are getting so crowded that they sometimes pick up traffic from telephone answering services.

The system will be paid for with a five-year bank loan. The county's share of the fifth cent of the state sales tax will be pledged to pay off the loan, commissioners agreed.

The system will require replacement of all communications equipment at the public safety and sheriff's departments, all portable radios and transmission towers.

Kaiser said the system will permit expansion of the county's first- response, automatic-aid fire and rescue program, in which the closest available fire and rescue units respond to an emergency regardless of political boundaries.

On Oct. 1, Casselberry will join Altamonte Springs and Longwood as participants in the first-response program.